Anthony Reid

The origin of this thesis was a purely theoretical problem - that of the meeting of the ideal and the possible, the ethical and the political. Is it possible to speak of a 'Christian' approach to politics and economics, and if so can it expect to be influential? Since setting off on this note I have been led along unexpected paths, and what has emerged could hardly claim to answer, or perhaps even ask, the original question. The period was narrowed to the depression since it marked a stage when fundamental political ideas were nearer the surface than usual. The subject gradually restricted itself to the Church, and became increasingly concerned with the nature of the Christian ethic rather than its influence. The final product must stand as a detailed study of the interaction of Church and society at a time of particular social and economic stress. As political history it can be no more than an essay in public opinion; as religious history it may be an excessively ambitious exploration of an important but neglected field - the Church's responsibility to society.

Indonesia’s maritime boundary with India, lying barely 100km from Banda Aceh, appears quiet and of little interest to policy-makers, in contrast to almost all the other contested boundaries with Malaysia, China, the Philippines, and Australia. India’s historical relations with Sumatra have also drawn less scholarly or popular attention than those with the Arab, Persian, and Turkish worlds, or with Java, the Peninsula, and China. It is one of the imbalances and justifying the “Indian Ocean’ in the title of International Centre for Aceh and Indian Ocean Studies. It is also supported by arguing that northern Sumatra’s most important historical relationship outside Sumatra itself was for long with India. The time must come when this neighbourly maritime relationship is normalised in the context of improving Indonesia-India ties.

This book has a lineage. Its laudable aim is to further the “rapprochement” between South and Southeast Asia, “whose deeply connected histories have been forgotten for a long time,” by seeking new bases for coherent reintegration. First the 1941 collapse of the unifying British naval dominance from Aden to Hong Kong, then nationalism, notably on display in the rift between Sukarno and Nehru at the 1955 Bandung Conference, and finally the US model of Area Studies basing funding on separate Sou...

I congratulate l’équipe Archipel on having stayed the course so heroically and creatively. Few journals are worth subscribing to for a lifetime, but Archipel is one. Its half-century is roughly the same period as my active life as a Southeast Asianist. I was there at the beginning as a subscriber and distant admirer, and I am happy to note that we are both still standing, though only Archipel with as much vigour as ever. It has retained over the half-century a remarkable mix of the deeply lea...

The Sea in History - The Early Modern World - edited by Christian Buchet February 2017

Chris Baker and Pasuk Phongpaichit have already proved themselves one of the most creative and complementary marital partnerships in the business of interpreting Asia. While they eschew partitioning responsibility, suffice it to say that together they offer both an elegant Cambridge style of historical analysis and great empathy for the Thai sources and context. Following their innovative and successful A History of Thailand (2005), Baker and Pasuk have recently turned their attention to elegant English editions of some crucial Ayutthaya texts. The scholarly effort of rendering into poetic English two colorful epic poems, Tale of Khun Chang Khun Phaen: Siam’s Great Folk Epic of Love and War (2010), and Yuan Phai, Defeat of Lanna: A Fifteenth-Century Thai Epic Poem (2016), was accompanied by a study and translation of The Palace Law of Ayutthaya and the Thammasat: Law and Kingship in Siam...